USDA Proposes Tougher Food Safety Standards for Chicken and Turkey

From USDA:

Posted by Al Almanza, USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety, on January 21, 2015 at 2:00 PM

The graphic above illustrates how proposed new federal standards could help reduce poultry-related Salmonella illnesses by an estimated 50,000 each year. Click to enlarge.

It’s no secret that Americans eat a lot of chicken and turkey. In fact, USDA estimates that a single American will eat 102 pounds of poultry in 2015. It is USDA’s job to ensure the meat and poultry products we enjoy are also safe to eat, and that means adapting federal food safety regulations to meet changes in production technology, scientific understanding of foodborne illness, and consumer demand.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 1 million Americans contract foodborne Salmonella poisoning each year, and 200,000 of those illnesses can be attributed to poultry. Today, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service proposed new food safety standards that would reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter, another common cause of foodborne illness, on ground chicken and turkey, as well as chicken legs, breasts and wings, which represent the majority of poultry items that Americans purchase and feed their families.

By taking specific aim at lowering contamination on these products, an estimated 50,000 cases of foodborne illness could be averted annually.

Since 1996, FSIS has used pathogen reduction performance standards to measure the food safety performance of meat and poultry businesses.  With this proposal, FSIS would make the performance standards for ground poultry tougher to meet, which would reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter levels on ground poultry nationwide. FSIS implemented performance standards for whole chickens in 1996 but has since learned that Salmonella contamination levels increase as chicken is further processed into parts. By creating a first-time-ever standard for chicken parts, and by performing regulatory testing at a point closer to the final product, FSIS can greatly reduce consumer exposure to Salmonella and Campylobacter.

In addition, FSIS is proposing to be more strategic in the way we schedule microbial tests for Salmonella and Campylobacter at poultry facilities so we can gain a better picture of the food safety realities from business to business. Currently, we schedule a “set” of 52 samples at a facility, which are taken on consecutive days once the set is started. Facilities are categorized according to the number of samples that test positive in their set. Some retailers will only purchase chicken from the top category, so companies are motivated to be among those performers who meet or do better than the national performance standard. By stretching a sample set out over the course of a year so that samples are not collected on consecutive days, and by not alerting the company that the sample will be collected, results will be less affected by intermittent seasonal or production changes, and it will take longer for a company to move from a lower to a higher category. This should prompt companies to take meaningful steps that have a long lasting impact on the safety of their products.

The steps we are proposing are major pieces of FSIS’ Salmonella Action Plan, which the agency developed and released in 2013 to reduce Salmonella illnesses from meat, beef and pork. Collectively, these three foods contribute to about one third of all Salmonella illnesses, and FSIS aims to significantly reduce that number to meet the U.S. government’s Healthy People 2020 goals.

Land of 10 Thousand Lakes and 20 Million Turkeys

From USDA:

Posted by Dan Lofthus, Minnesota State Statistician, National Agricultural Statistics Service, on January 15, 2015 at 2:00 PM

Minnesota may have 10,000 lakes, but it has a lot more turkeys! Check back next Thursday for another state spotlight drawn from the 2012 Census of Agriculture!

As we’re bracing for another arctic winter blast here in Minnesota, it is the perfect time for me to get indoors and introduce you to our state’s agriculture with the help of the results from the most recent Census of Agriculture.

While, according to the Census Bureau, less than 1 percent of our state’s population are involved in agriculture, our state ranks fifth in the United States for the value of agricultural products sold. In 2012, Minnesota farmers sold nearly $21.3 billion worth of products.

Just as with other Midwestern states, our top agricultural products are corn and soybeans. Our growers planted more than 8.3 million acres to corn for grain and more than 7 million acres to soybeans in 2012.  Looking at a more unique crop, our growers lead the nation in sugarbeet production in 2012. That year they harvested more than 12.3 million tons of that crop.

Crops may be the larger portion of our agriculture, but Minnesota livestock sector is not too shabby either. In 2012, our livestock producers sold more than $7.4 billion worth of livestock, poultry and their products, such as eggs and milk. We are especially proud of our turkey industry. You may not know this, but Minnesota is the #1 producer of turkeys in the United States. The latest Census of Agriculture counted nearly 19.5 million birds on our state’s farms.

Our farmers take many steps to make sure Minnesota residents have access to fresh locally-grown food. In 2012, there were 4,213 farms in our state selling products directly to individuals. In addition, 305 farms in Minnesota participated in Community Supported Agriculture programs, bridging the relationship between farmers and consumers. To meet consumer demand for organic products, our farmers also produced and sold more than $67 million worth of organic products in 2012.

This is just a small sample of what the Land of 10,000 Lakes has to offer. Don’t forget, the Census of Agriculture also gives us details of our farms and those who tend to them. I didn’t get a chance to discuss farmer demographics here, but you can check them out by visiting www.agcensus.usda.gov.

South Carolina Features Supreme Chicken Sandwich in School Lunch

From USDA:

Posted by Samantha Benjamin-Kirk, FNS Southeast Regional Office Farm to School Program Lead, on January 13, 2015 at 3:00 PM

According to Food Service Director, Todd Bedenbaugh, “since the cafeterias begun promoting Supreme Chicken, sales for this ‘local protein source’ have increased by 25 percent.”

It’s not surprising that chicken, the most popular meat for kids, is being served in school cafeterias across the nation.  However, in Columbia, S.C., locally sourced chicken has taken center stage on school meal trays in an effort to increase the state’s Farm to School programming.

South Carolina’s District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties Schools are piloting a poultry project to expand local products offered to students.  In partnership with Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, the school district is offering a variety of locally produced products to their students.

This particular Farm to School Program is made possible through the collaboration of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, South Carolina Department of Agriculture, South Carolina Department of Education, and Clemson University’s Youth Learning Institute.

By Holly Godwin, South Carolina Farm to Institution Program Director

During the 2013-2014 academic school year, 20 District Five schools of Lexington and Richland Counties (South Carolina) participated in the Supreme Chicken project.  This included all 12 elementary schools, four middle schools, and four high schools.

In compliance with USDA’s National School Lunch Program nutritional sodium and grain standards, the Supreme Chicken Pilot Program features three different locally sourced chicken sandwiches (grilled, spicy grilled, and whole wheat breaded) and chicken nuggets to students as a meal option. These menu items were vetted by students and are offered daily in the districts’ high schools and middle schools and monthly in the elementary schools.

A Supreme Chicken logo has been created and the sandwiches and nuggets are packaged in bags and boxes displaying the logo and advertising the options as local. The school cafeterias promote the chicken options with Supreme Chicken signage developed by the South Carolina Farm to School Program.

In total, 112,800 South Carolina produced chicken products were purchased through this pilot project. Of these, 18,720 were chicken nugget products and all others were chicken sandwiches. Numbers of products purchased by school varied greatly from a total of 360 products at one small elementary school to 36,200 from a larger high school within the district. This was expected, given the differences in student population numbers.

Students provided feedback on the Supreme Chicken Pilot Project through a short survey. Most of the students surveyed (81 percent) had tried the Supreme Chicken and just over half of them purchased it at least once each week. Additionally, 76 percent of students surveyed reported that they would be able to recognize the Supreme Chicken logo.  The success of this pilot project has sparked the attention of other school districts in South Carolina. The South Carolina Farm to School program is looking forward to expanding to additional school districts this coming year.

The Pham Family Farm, Immigrants Making a Good Life in Mississippi

From USDA:

Posted by Judi Craddock, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Mississippi, on December 8, 2014 at 1:00 PM

Nancy and Hung Pham stand in front of one of their many fruit trees with branches so full they almost hit the ground. NRCS photo by Judi Craddock.

Just outside Hazlehurst, Mississippi, a community of 4,000 about 30 miles south of Jackson, lies a poultry farm owned by a Vietnamese farm family whose lives are an amazing story of survival and determination.

Hung and Nancy Pham are refugees who fled the former South Vietnam as teenagers in a shrimp boat during the fall of Saigon in 1975. They were rescued by the U.S. Navy and brought to America. Years after arriving in the United States, the two were reunited through family friends and soon married. Today, the Phams attribute their journey through hardships, their work ethic and positive attitude to the happiness and success they’ve enjoyed as poultry farmers.

“We spent most of our lives in the city after coming to America, but we have loved returning to a healthier, country lifestyle and taking care of the land,” Nancy said.

The Phams were living in Texas when they heard about an out-of-date 105-acre poultry farm for sale in Mississippi. Hung was already working on a poultry farm owned by a family member. After gaining some operational experience, attending poultry seminars and researching the industry, they bought the Mississippi farm in 2006.

“With the old chicken houses not up to modern standards, no compost to manage litter and so many repairs to be made, the place looked more like a junkyard than a farm and was in really bad shape,” Hung said.

A waste storage facility built last year is used to properly store poultry waste or litter. NRCS photo by Judi Craddock.

Luckily, some neighbors invited Hung to a local meeting where he heard about USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, as well as Farm Bill conservation programs. NRCS has played a vital role in providing technical assistance and guidance to the Phams in using and benefitting from the agency’s Environmental Quality Incentives Programs, or EQIP.

The Phams applied for and received financial assistance through EQIP and began implementing conservation practices on their farm. This included a waste storage facility, also known as a dry stack, which is used to properly store chicken waste or litter, and an animal mortality facility, which composts chicken carcasses to create organic fertilizer for pastureland and cropland.

At full capacity, the Phams can raise 200,000 chickens five times a year for a buyer, which provides the chicks, feed and medicinal requirements. The operational expenses are the Phams responsibility. Their poultry houses are built according to the buyer’s specifications. Every 58-65 days, the grown chickens are picked up, and new chicks delivered to the Phams.

With Hung being the handyman and Nancy keeping a close eye on their finances, they have turned the farm completely around, making it a successful family farm for themselves and their three children.

“The Phams are one of the best landowners and producers we have had the privilege of working with,” said Bill Russell, a supervisory district conservationist with NRCS, who helped the Phams apply for assistance. “They have readily taken every opportunity available from NRCS, plus invested so much of themselves to boost their productivity as well as become environmentally friendly.”

New, modern poultry houses on the Pham Farm. NRCS photo by Judi Craddock.

Full Disclosure: Changes to Poultry Inspections Needed to Protect Public Health

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Al Almanza, Administrator, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, on September 4, 2013 at 10:18 AM

Cross posted from Food Safety News:

For the past 15 years, USDA conducted a pilot project to inform how we modernize our inspection process – all to ensure that meat and poultry is safe to eat. Today, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), released a report on the project, known as the HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP), and how FSIS has relied on it to propose a modernized approach to inspecting poultry.

While an initial scan of the press coverage may lead you to believe that GAO discredits this proposal, that is not the case. GAO gave HIMP a thorough review and made just two recommendations, both of which FSIS is already working to fulfill.

GAO chose not to include some facts that also deserve public disclosure. FSIS put forward this proposal because data shows that a system like HIMP will prevent at least 5,000 more foodborne illnesses annually. The study that FSIS has conducted of HIMP provides an appropriate basis on which to judge the merits of this system. Approximately 10 years ago, FSIS asked an independent group of experts in poultry microbiology, statistical evaluation, poultry food safety and public health to evaluate our study.

These experts supported FSIS’ study design and found that that our approach was valid. But GAO’s report does not mention this food safety conclusion.

GAO’s report also assumes that the basis for moving forward with this proposal is to improve efficiency and save taxpayer dollars. Although it does accomplish both of those things, as FSIS made clear to GAO, this proposal is first and foremost about making food safer. As an agency responsible above all for protecting consumers from foodborne illness, we are obligated to ensure a more modern and better system at hand. In other words GAO did not evaluate this from a public health angle – Rates of illness caused by Salmonella and Campylobacter have been stagnant, even showing occasional rises, in recent years. We must reverse this trend, and if we are to do so, one thing is clear: we cannot continue inspecting poultry the way we have been for over 50 years.

Here is what the data tells us:

• Under the HIMP, FSIS inspectors complete more inspection tasks “off the line” that verify that the plants they work in continuously satisfy food safety performance standards.
• Fecal material, the primary avenue for pathogen contamination, appears about half as often in HIMP establishments as it does in non-HIMP establishments. HIMP establishments are also checked four times more often for fecal material by FSIS inspectors as are non HIMP establishments.
• The average positive rate for Salmonella in HIMP establishments is 20% lower than the average positive rate in non-pilot establishments.

If finalized and implemented broadly, this new inspection system would enable FSIS to better fulfill our food safety mission. Nothing in the GAO’s report contradicts this basic fact.